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My 8-year old has been taking piano lessons for 1.5 years now. We just have a rinky-dink keyboard that's not even 88 keys and doesn't have weighted keys. We obviously need to get something much better. At first, I was thinking we'd get an acoustic upright but now I'm seriously considering buying a really good digital, like the Roland HP-506...

Some reasons why: I really like the idea of being able to lower the volume at times. The piano will be in a common area, near the kitchen and adjacent to another living area. This is good because my kid is more apt to practice if he's around people than if the piano was off to an isolated room, but I feel like there could be times where the loudness of an acoustic could really bother me. I would never want to tell him not to play but I have a weird issue where I don't like too many loud sounds going on around me at all times. Also, the piano will be against an interior wall but opposite a west-facing window that gets a lot of afternoon sun in the summer. We could close the curtain during those times, but that room will still get at least a little warmer in the sumer afternoons and I wondered if we'd have to get an acoustic piano tuned much more regularly in those conditions?

I sort of feel like maybe I would be being an awful parent if I don't get an acoustic but I'm pretty concerned about the loudness of it all. I read this thread from a few years back: http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb.../topic/020093/Number/0/site_id/1#import.

How are you going to maintain a distraction-free environment in which your son can practice with full concentration?

It's not really super loud when he practices. We have two living areas adjacent to each other, separated by a wall, where the piano will be against. My daughter generally is in the other living area playing or one of us parents is reading with her in the other room and the other parent might be with my son as he practices. So, I'm not really worried about the structured practice he does but more the tooling around that he will do throughout the day or the tooling around other children will do on it when they visit. It can be a little annoying - it sometimes annoys me as it is with the dinky keyboard we have. I don't know - sometimes this forum is a little intimidating where some of the piano teachers on this board seem to require quite a bit from their students. My son is good about practicing 5 times a day for 30 minutes each and he generally enjoys it, but I see piano as a hobby for him - not a calling.

We also don't really have a big enough house to isolate the piano away, unless I guess we somehow crammed it into his room and he closed the door. But then he wouldn't practice. So, in a way, are you suggesting maybe a digital would actually be better in this case because he could put on headphones and perhaps be able to concentrate more than if we had an acoustic?

There was a recent thread on this topic:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb.../Piano_for_a_7_year_old.html#Post2595087

My child plays our digital piano often, even more frequently than the upright acoustic that we had purchased first. I am very happy with both the Yamaha Clavinova CLP-440 and the Yamaha Arius YDP-181.

There's no right or wrong answer for our OP. He or she is worried about noise, and pianos do make noise. Digitals make noise, unless you only play them using headphones. Acoustics make noise always. If the parent has trouble with noise, maybe music does not belong in this household at all, and this boy should switch to chess or knitting.

A good digital piano will clearly be a step up from the family's present model. So will any acoustic piano. To me the issue about sunlight and tuning and acoustic piano location is unimportant, and a red herring.

If I can believe the OP that this 8yo boy is currently practicing 2.5 hours a day on a toy piano, I'd say for heaven's sake consult with his piano teacher, and then get him a real acoustic piano or a high-end digital. Tomorrow. And have the parent purchase ear plugs.

Really? 30 minutes 5x/day?

I agree with this 100%.

I was fortunate when I was young to have a room off from the main den. You can still hear the piano and TV fine but when I practiced my family turned the TV off to allow me to practice.

Turning the volume up or down on a digital will cause problems if he ever wants to play a acoustic . Same goes with using headphones. They type of instrument to buy (acoustic or digital) depends on what level you want to take playing the piano. Just for kicks or serious study. Anyone looking to study seriously would have a good teacher and decent acoustic.

To me it's a good thing that any kid has the willingness to practice for a long period of time, better than video games.

Piano Lessons Make you Smarter

Benefits of Music Lessons

Sorry, I messed up. The kid only practices 2.5 hours a week. But I guess this forum has taught me that we're probably not worthy enough for piano.

Half an hour a day of practice for an 8-year-old sounds much more believable, and fine. But the idea that someone is "not worthy" of an acoustic piano? That is just wrong thinking.

No one on PianoWorld thinks this way. If this is the message you have inferred, I hang my head in shame and urge you to reconsider. Pianos are hardly a luxury item, and it is wonderful that your son is learning music: he'll do even better with a better instrument of any kind.

To me it is all about quality and one's budget. At the low end of piano purchasing, I would recommend a good digital piano, new or used. If you can spend a little more, I would more often recommend an acoustic upright piano, new or used. Plenty of others will disagree, and vote for more expensive digitals.

I'd say that if you can't tolerate an acoustic piano when your son is practicing, a good digital (with good headphones) is better than nothing.

Certainly better than a 'keyboard', if that's what he's playing on now. But don't make/allow him to play it at an unrealistically low volume (whether through headphones or speakers). Because, that will mean he'll develop a 'banging' technique, which I've seen all too often with kids who learnt exclusively on digitals and their parents turn down the volume control rather giving them headphones to use. He needs to learn to control the volume with his playing, not with the volume control.

When using headphones, set the volume to be equivalent to that of an acoustic through the headphones, and don't play around with the setting after that. In other words, treat the digital like an acoustic.

If nothing else, getting a good 88 key, fully weighted keyboard for around $500 would be a great step to make.

Once, some years ago, I had just moved, and was in between pianos and got just a really cheap 61-key keyboard to carry me over, and it did real damage to my practicing. I just stopped practicing on it altogether and went out, instead, to find real acoustics that other people would lend me to play on.

Once I was able to invest in a pretty good digital piano with 88 fully-weighted keys and great deal of sensitivity to touch and, in my opinion, the ability to communicate subtle and varied expression, things did a complete turnaround.

Since getting that piano, I practice at home a lot, lot more than 5 x 30 minutes a day!

If your son is practicing five times a week without being nagged or threaten, he is doing much better than a lot of other piano students out there.

I agree that even a $500 digital would be an upgrade. You can always upgrade again to a higher end digital or an acoustic later.

I don't know why you feel this way - I don't see anything anyone has said in response to your post to give off this impression.

The Roland HP-605 is a very nice digital and it sounds like it is a perfect solution for your family. Although I do recommend that when your children's friends come over, that it not be used as a toy to play on unless they're really trying to make up some music. Keep the little keyboard for playing around with.

30 minutes/day 5x a week is just fine. I'd be delighted if I could get this kind of regularity from my students!

If my parents had judged me as a child based on my practice habits (scant) and innate aptitude (scant), I'd probably not have had a piano. Yet I kept with it throughout my life and it's an important part of my life.

I dug up the same old thread about noise level when I first bought an acoustic for my 5 year old, and it made me concerned about noise safety. But two years later, loudness hasn't been a problem for us, and we have a 5'10" grand. With the lid down (how she typically practices), I measured the volumes with the Decibel Meter Pro app and on fortissimo passages she peaks at 79 dB.

We also have a decent Roland digital, and I enjoy hearing music from the acoustic piano far more than from the digital. There is just no comparison. The acoustic has allowed my kid to develop musical expression and technique that would have been impossible on the digital, and this is why her piano teacher wanted us to get her an acoustic ASAP.

You don't mention a budget constraint, or a problem with close neighbors sharing a wall. There are some valid reasons for picking a digital over an acoustic, but if you have the means to do so, I would vote for a decent acoustic. Your kid is totally worthy of an acoustic! He practices regularly and 30 min, 5x per week is a decent amount of time for his age. I'm curious what you have read that would make you think otherwise?

My mother was given a piano when she was somewhere around 7 to 10, which she tells me she didn't want at all, but she dutifully went and took lessons for 7 years. Ultimately that piano came to our house when I was 8, sparking a love affair for me that continues to this day. So you never know what lovely things a piano will spark.

Best wishes to your son with whatever new instrument you acquire. Practicing regularly is huge for musicians -- I am only now finally catching on that if I practice regularly, the daily smidgens of improvement add up into progress. (I've known this in my head for a long time, but it's taken until now for my gut and habits to catch up.) So he's well ahead of the curve.

This sounds great! 5x/day seemed pretty unusual!



Worthiness is a big deal in my local community, but not as it concerns musical instruments! I think everyone should have the best instrument(s) that they can afford and fit into their house--no matter how well or poorly they play.

I would also like to encourage you to explore other options for not listening to your son's practice. Earplugs come in a zillion sizes, shapes, and colors with different amounts of noise reduction. There are also many ways for you to listen to something else--my husband uses bluetooth headphones so he doesn't have to listen to the worst of my practice.

Because he's a kid, you'll want to listen (and participate) sometimes, but other times, just let him work it out.

You are right on target here. Once the volume is set, keep it there. It needs to be set so that you can get a really loud sound and a really soft one. Set the volume so that both extremes work. Equally important with speakers or with headphones.